Crisp? Crumble? Potato? Potato?

When company is coming over last minute, what is the easiest dessert to make?  A crisp/crumble.

Last night we made an apple peach crumble, one hour before guests arrived for an impromptu dinner.  A crisp or crumble is one of those satisfying dessert that is quick and easy any time of year.  Moreover, they are flexible and amenable to adaptation and experimentation.

Simply slice as much fruit as you have, choose an appropriate size baking dish (your sliced fruit should come to the top of the dish as fruit cooks down in the oven), seasoning (ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice, brown sugar, white sugar, honey, maple syrup…) your favourite crisp topping and bake.

After a quick look of what was in the fridge, we determined we had enough apples and peaches to fill a 9×13 glass baking dish.  We could have used a smaller baking dish but decided to make a larger crisp for left-overs.

Next we seasoned our sliced fruit with ground ginger, cinnamon, one tablespoon of brown sugar and the juice of one lemon.  Mixed it all together in a big plastic bowl, sampled a slice or two of apple and adjusted the taste accordingly with more spices.

Finally, to make our crisp topping, we adapted the recipe from Ina Gartner’s Old Fashioned Apple Crisp recipe (50 g less butter and no salt) but any crumble recipe will do.  If you want to make your own, make sure the mixture actually crumbles, meaning there is enough butter to moisten the flour, sugar and oats or else it will stay grainy and uncooked while you bake it in the oven.  Butter is key!

We put our dessert into the oven to bake at 350F/180C and checked on it after 30 minutes and then every 15 minutes thereafter to make sure the top does not burn.

In our oven it took approximately 1 hour to bake (fruit was bubbling and the crisp had turned brown).  The time will vary for each oven/recipe, which is why we like to check so often.

We served the crisp hot along with a cup of tea to our guests.

A perfect way to end a last-minute dinner.

Bloggers To Know + Other Fruity-Crumbly recipes to try:

1. Joy the Baker: Pear and Cranberry Crumble
2. Apt. 2b Baking Co.: Blueberry Almond Crumb Pie
3. Raspberri Cupcakes: Apple Crumble Loaf
4. Tartlette: Spiced Quince Crumbles

What is your favourite way to entertain last minute? Do you have a go-to crisp/crumble recipe? Feel free to share in the comment section below or on the Countlan Facebook page.